Irish people will “look back in horror” at how unaccompanied minors who came to Ireland seeking help and safety were treated, a conference in Dublin heard yesterday.
Barnardos head of advocacy Catherine Joyce said separated children – those arriving here on their own and who may have experienced persecution, armed conflict or trafficking – were being "shunned" on coming of age.
Speaking at the launch of research findings into their care, she said their treatment on turning 18 moved from “caring foster homes” to the adult asylum-seeking process and direct provision centres, and was “a report waiting to happen”.
She described it as “astounding” that children who had been settled with foster families here, and who had been through the Irish education system and done the Leaving Certificate, were unable to pursue their education because on turning 18 they lost their right to care.
Calling for an “independent advisory system” to help children and their carers deal with the asylum process, she asked for their right to third-level education while they awaited asylum decisions.
The author of the research, UCD lecturer in applied social science Muireann Ní Raghallaigh, said the young people she interviewed “dreaded” turning 18 because it meant “potential deportation, removal from foster families and being placed in direct provision centres”.
She said “aftercare” when the child turned 18 should include “good accommodation and good support”, otherwise the good achieved in foster care “became unravelled or undone”.
While she cautioned against a “two-tier” system for asylum seekers, she said the current treatment of separated children needed to be addressed.
Dr Ní Raghallaigh said overall her research, co-funded by Barnardos and the HSE, showed “enormous improvement” in the treatment of separated children by the State. Praising the movement away from unsupported hostel accommodation to foster care and supported lodgings, she said the system had “come a very long way”.
“It’s important to acknowledge what a difference it can make in the lives of young people when there is appropriate care provision in place for them.”
She said there was an urgent need to recruit more carers, particularly those of diverse ethnic backgrounds, a need for carers to be better trained and for more individualised care.
The manager of the HSE National Office for Unaccompanied Minors, Mary Kenny, welcomed the identification of service improvements by the report. With the numbers of separated children referred to the HSE peaking in 2001 at 1,085, she described the hostel accommodation once used as "grossly inadequate and inappropriate". With an average of 52 separated children in State care going missing in 2004, she said it was clear "adults were targeting the service".
Of two separated children missing from State care at the end of 2012, she said “two was two too many”.
Ms Kenny said she was keen that both foster care and supported lodgings be Hiqa inspected and for separated children to have an independent complaints procedure.
Chairing the seminar, Ombudsman for Children Emily Logan said that while numbers of separated children in Ireland had dropped to 71, their needs must be kept on the political agenda.